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1930 Europe in the Shadow of the Beast

Arthur Haberman
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Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 i

1930
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Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 iii

1930
EUROPE IN
THE SHADOW
OF THE BEAST

ARTHUR HABERMAN
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 iv

Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for
the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Gov-
ernment of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. This
work was supported by the Research Support Fund.

an Ontario government agency


un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication


Haberman, Arthur, [date], author
1930 : Europe in the shadow of the beast / Arthur Haberman.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77112-361-7 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-77112-363-1 (EPUB).—
ISBN 978-1-77112-362-4 (PDF)
1. Intellectuals—Europe—History—20th century. 2. Europe—Intellectual life—
20th century. I. Title. II. Title: Nineteen thirty.
CB205.H33 2018 940.5’2 C2018-900842-3
C2018-900843-1

Front cover image: Georges Braque, The Blue Mandolin (1930). Cover design and interior
design by Angela Booth Malleau, designbooth.ca.
© 2018 Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
www.wlupress.wlu.ca
This book is printed on FSC® certified paper and is certified Ecologo. It contains post-
consumer fibre, is processed chlorine free, and is manufactured using biogas energy.
Printed in Canada
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material
used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and
omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit-
ted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or
a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an
Access Copyright licence, visit http://www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-
893-5777.
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 v

To the memory of my teachers:


Joan Kelly Gadol (1928–1982) and
A. William Salomone (1915–1989)
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 vi

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,


Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
—Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 vii

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Prologue: Europeans, 1930 5


1 Thomas Mann: The Uncanny and Its Power 17
2 Virginia Woolf: Transcending 33
3 José Ortega y Gasset: Rethinking the West 49
4 Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill: Rethinking Theatre,
Remaking Opera 67
5 L’âme noir: The Black Soul in the City of Light 87
6 L.H.O.O.Q.: Painting in 1930 107
7 Aldous Huxley: Fearing the Future 129
8 Sigmund Freud: The Fragility of Civilization 143
9 Yesterday and Today 163
Epilogue: Europeans Today 213

Acknowledgements 221
Notes 223
Bibliographical Notes 231
Additional Reading 239
Index 241

vii
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Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 1

INTRODUCTION

THE YEAR 1930 was hardly a happy one for Europe and the West. The effects
of the disaster of the Great War were still seen and felt. Economically, the
Wall Street crash in October 1929 began a time when the viability of liberal
capitalism was seriously questioned. In Italy there was a new authoritarian-
ism claiming to be the wave of the future. Communism was a hope, a fear,
and, mostly, an unknown.
A number of European writers and artists dealt with the time as a crisis
of culture and civilization. Some were friends, others were hardly known
to the rest. However, 1930 saw a coming together on the part of the major
intellectuals of Europe about European values and stability, and the future
of the continent. What makes 1930 such a watershed is that rarely have so
many important minds worked independently on issues so closely related.
All argued that something was seriously amiss and asked that people
become aware of the dilemma. Writers such as Thomas Mann, Virginia
Woolf, José Ortega y Gasset, Sigmund Freud, and Bertolt Brecht acted as
public intellectuals, asking hard questions about the survival of a Western
tradition that went at least as far back as the Enlightenment and sometimes
to the Renaissance and its classical revival.
The central issues were:
• The viability of a secular Europe with Enlightenment values
Most wondered whether the direction of modernity had taken a dark
turn with the event of the Great War and the rise of a strident and violent
ethnic nationalism. Could the best of European culture survive a turn
inward to destruction and fear?
• Coming to terms with a new, darker view of human nature
Now, in place of a view of human nature as either Cartesian (Cogito,
ergo sum), as one that claimed we are distinguished by our capacity
to reason, or as one that says we create with our labour (Homo faber),

1
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 2

2 Introduction

there is introduced the idea of humans as guided by instincts that pit


Eros versus Thanatos—life versus death. We are beings with sexual
desires and with an instinctual violence. “Homo homini lupus,” said
Freud: “Man is wolf to man.” Hence, what now does it mean to have a
moral, viable civilization?
• The rise of the politics of irrationality
The old Liberal view was one that gave humans the right to decide their
own path in life based upon self-interest and rational choices. How-
ever, now it will be asked if, because of our new view of human nature,
we make political and social decisions based on irrational desires and
unconscious choices. How, then, do we develop a body politic that
makes us responsible for our choices? Is there a danger in mass society
that was not foreseen?
• Mass culture and its dangers
“The characteristic of the hour,” wrote Ortega in 1930, “is that the com-
monplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to
proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever
it will.”1 Does the victory of liberal democracy mean that those who
benefit from it will destroy the very society that raised them up?
• Identity and the Other in the midst of Western civilization
There were three main Others in Europe in 1930—women, Blacks, and
Jews. Woolf and Nardal asked about the first; Nardal and Langston
Hughes were among many who began to redefine Black identity into
something that would later in the decade be called Negritude; and many
Jewish and non-Jewish figures dealt with the virulent and increasing
anti-Semitism of the times.
• Finding ways to represent the postwar world
The crisis was not seen simply as one of politics and society. It also
became one of art and form. How do we now tell what is happening
when the old world and its forms of representation are no longer ade-
quate? How do we paint? How do we make music? How do we write? It
was a period of artistic invention, one in which experimentation became
the norm.
• The epistemological dilemma
The problem of knowledge had not been so serious in the West since the
Scientific Revolution. In many ways, it still exists. Nietzsche proclaimed
in 1882 that “god is dead.” He added, “and we are his murderers.” What
he meant is that we no longer have the certainty afforded by systems
of belief that were more or less universal. In effect, we have lost our
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 3

Introduction 3

Weltanschauung and substituted relativity at best, total anarchy at worst.


This problem, for many, including Mann, Freud, and Ortega, threatened
the very existence of civilization itself.
• The new Fascism: is it a new norm or an aberration?
A number of intellectuals recognized something frightening in the rise
of Fascism, three years before the coming to power of Nazism in Ger-
many. Is what is happening in Italy something that will sweep the con-
tinent? Can it happen anywhere?
• The dystopian trend of thought
Very few utopias were written in the West after 1914. Rather, in place of
the reforming utopia as the good place, the dystopia, the cautionary tale
of where we already might be and where we are going, gained legitimacy.
The year 1930 can be seen as the dawn of a period of darkness, the
beginning of what Auden would in 1939 style “a low, dishonest decade,” 2
one of the most deeply reflective moments in the history of the West. Civ-
ilization stumbled into a war without precedent in 1914, managed to sur-
vive its conflagration, but did not immediately create something viable and
valuable afterward. Intellectuals asked, Where are we heading? Who are we,
and how do we build moral social and political structures? Can we continue
to believe in the insights and healing quality of our culture? Big questions.
After the optimism of the nineteenth century, Europe questioned itself and
its own viability.
Major thinkers—Mann, Woolf, Ortega, Freud, Brecht, Nardal, and
Huxley; a number of artists, including Picasso and Magritte; musicians like
Weill—all sought in and around the year 1930 to grapple with these issues
still central to our lives.
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Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 5

Prologue
EUROPEANS, 1930

LET US IMAGINE a European couple in 1930. He was born in 1890, she in


1892. He is the son of a teacher and is now an engineer, working for the civil
service of a city in their country. She is the daughter of shopkeepers, small
grocers. She has a nursing certificate, and is now a housewife. They have two
children, ten and eight.
Our couple married in 1915, just before he went to war for their country.
They had a better war than some other couples, for they survived and had
a future. He fought in the trenches and witnessed horrors that still give him
occasional nightmares, though he will not talk about them. He was wounded
in his left leg and has a permanent slight limp. She did some nursing on the
home front during the war, lived mainly in a residence with other nurses,
and is admired by family and friends for her compassion and decency.
The couple corresponded during the war, remained in love, and longed
only for the conflict to be over, whatever may come. Afterward, they pur-
chased a small house in a suburb of their city, settled into something called
normality, had their children and led regular lives.
They are an intelligent pair. They read the newspaper, perhaps The Times
of London, Le Figaro, La Vanguardia, the Frankfurter Zeitiung, or the Corriera
della Sera, and try to keep abreast of current affairs. They like to read cur-
rent serious novels aloud to each other, and in the last ten years might have
read and discussed Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, Jaroslav Hašek’s
The Good Soldier Schweik, André Gide’s The Counterfeiters, or Eric Maria
Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. They have developed a taste for
popular literature, especially mysteries; they love Poe and Conan Doyle, and
recently found the contemporary Agatha Christie.

5
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 6

6 Prologue: Europeans, 1930

In 1928, they purchased a radio for their home and it has brought them
some information and pleasure. They listen to the news, and also now have
access to entertainment. They are especially fond of classical music and
search for favourite symphonies in the evening so that the family can enjoy
them together. On special occasions, they might attend a live musical perfor-
mance or the theatre. They are fascinated by the new development of cinema
and recently saw some films, perhaps Battleship Potemkin or Charlie Chaplin
in The Circus. They especially liked Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, which they saw
three years ago and still discuss.
Our family takes a one-week holiday at the seaside each year, staying in
a pension or a bed and breakfast that caters to others like themselves. There
is a public park near their home, and the family uses it in good weather for
picnics and Sunday outings.
They are very good citizens, decent, responsible, law-abiding, wonderful
neighbours. Their children have manners, are respectful of others, and try
hard in their public schools. The couple is ambitious for their children and
see education as the road to social mobility. She spends some of her time as
a volunteer in the local school.
If there was one word to describe how our couple felt about their lives
and the future, it would be uneasy. They are uneasy about much in their lives:
the economic future, the political stability of their country, the world their
children will inherit, the durability of peace.
European culture has changed profoundly since the time our couple
was born. Indeed, Europeans worried now about the viability of European
culture itself. Paul Valéry stated in 1919, “the swaying of the ship has been so
violent that the best-hung lamps have finally overturned.”1 The term doubt is
usually associated with theology and reflections about the nature and exis-
tence of god or the gods. Now doubt has penetrated the spirit of Europe itself.
It had been assumed during the fin de siècle era that Europe was at the
forefront of human development. Many behaved as if it would simply go on
forever. The Great War ended this illusion and introduced a deep cultural
malaise. In his 1922 essay “The European,” one often cited by his generation,
Valéry articulated the general mood:

We hope vaguely, we dread precisely; our fears are infinitely more pre-
cise than our hopes; we confess that the charm of life is behind us,
abundance is behind us, but doubt and disorder are in us and with us.
There is no thinking man, however shrewd or learned he may be, who
can hope to dominate this anxiety, to escape from this impression of
darkness, to measure the probable duration of this period when the
virtual relations of humanity are disturbed profoundly.
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 7

Prologue: Europeans, 1930 7

We are a very unfortunate generation, whose lot has been to see


the moment of our passage through life coincide with the arrival of
great and terrifying events, the echo of which will resound through
all our lives.2

Valéry noted that everything has been questioned and norms have been
overturned—the economy is fraught with danger, states wonder what poli-
cies to follow, individuals question the meaning of their lives. He concluded,
“The Mind itself has not been exempt from all this damage. The Mind is in fact
cruelly stricken; it grieves in men of intellect, and looks sadly upon itself. It
distrusts itself profoundly.”3
European readers were faced with a plethora of novels documenting the
horrors of the Great War and the senselessness of its violence and deaths.
Many artists produced images that vied with those of the hell of Bosch, but
were contemporary. Poets used terms like “The Wasteland” to evoke the
present mood.
The reminder of a Europe wounded was everywhere. In France and
Belgium especially, there were the ruins of war. However, there were also the
returning soldiers, many of whom were wounded, some permanently dis-
abled, and others with lost limbs. A common sight on the streets of Europe
was young men using canes and crutches. The metaphor of sickness and a
need to be healed was part of everyday life.
This unease was also reflected in the puzzlement about the war’s reso-
lution. Winning a war is useless if it is not followed by a durable peace. Our
couple and their friends, with whom they sometimes discussed politics, did
not know what to make of the international relations that arose out of the
Versailles treaty.
For them, the settlement did not seem to hold. It violated several of
the principles of balance of power politics in an era of national sovereignty.
First, the treaty was made without the presence or consent of both Russia,
engaged in its revolution after having left the war in March 1918, and Ger-
many, defeated. It is axiomatic that a comprehensive treaty cannot create a
peace that will last unless the major powers involved in the conflict agree to
its provisions and are willing to act to uphold it. Of the five major powers,
only three deliberated and wrote the documents: the United States, Britain,
and France.
Moreover, by 1930 it was clear that the United States was following a
policy of withdrawal from European affairs, regularly called isolationism.
Though the idea of a strong League of Nations was put forth during the Great
War and at the Paris peace negotiations by its president, Woodrow Wilson,
the US Senate refused to endorse it in 1920; the country cooperated with
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 8

8 Prologue: Europeans, 1930

the League on occasion but never belonged to it. Wilsonianism was never
put into practice in the decade of the 1920s.
The treaty had economic consequences, predicted by the English econ-
omist John Maynard Keynes, that would unsettle both the European econ-
omy and relations among the major states. Germany was declared guilty of
fomenting the Great War and was required—forced, really—to pay repara-
tions, mainly to France, which had endured great destruction.
France was obsessed with Germany and its place in European affairs.
This was the result of events following the German victory over the French
in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the creation of a united Germany,
and the new status of Germany as the most important of the powers on the
European continent. The insistence in France and elsewhere that Germany
and Austria alone were responsible for the outbreak of the Great War added
to this concern. France believed that a weak Germany was necessary for the
stability of Europe.
Germany had difficulty raising enough funds to deal with the costs of
reparations and requested a two-year moratorium in 1922, something the
French vetoed. When no payments were forthcoming, the French took it
upon themselves to send troops to occupy the German industrial area of
the Ruhr. Eventually, an arrangement was made, but it was clear that the
Versailles Treaty was tottering.
The economic side of the reparations issue resulted in severe inflation
in Germany and the further alienation of the middle class from the treaty.
In order to deal with occupation and reparations, the German government
printed money. The mark, worth 62 marks to the US dollar in May 1921,
dropped to 100,000 to the dollar in June 1923, and lower still to 4.2 trillion
to the dollar in November 1923. Most German citizens had their savings
wiped out.
All of this resulted in a quest for some measure of stability. Many agree-
ments between countries were proposed. Two, designed to strengthen the
powers of the League of Nations in international disputes—a 1923 Treaty of
Mutual Assistance, and a 1924 proposal called the Geneva Protocol, which
required compulsory arbitration in the event of international disputes—
failed because, among others, Britain refused to sign. Now it seemed the
United States had withdrawn, and Britain was behaving as “little Englanders.”
France was distraught. It seemed to be the only one of the five powers com-
mitted to the treaty.
There soon came to be some positive signs. A Treaty of Locarno was
made in December 1925 that dealt with the borders between Germany, Bel-
gium, and France, signed as well by Britain and Italy. Germany joined the
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 20

20 Thomas Mann: The Uncanny and Its Power

Dionysian temperament, given legitimacy by some thinkers, would destroy


culture and civilization.
Two other incidents added to the strangeness of the holiday experience.
The narrator notes that even the beach and the play of children took on a
political tone. There was no innocence, only a heightened sense of the new
national honour. Hence, “patriotic children” now played with their own and
insulted others. Adults accepted this, and there were conversations about the
greatness of the new Italy. When his children questioned this lack of open-
ness, troubled by being designated as outsiders, their parents explained to
them that the Italians were experiencing something like an illness.
The second incident involved the daughter, whose bathing suit becomes
filled with sand one afternoon at the beach. She is told by her parents to take
it off and wash it in the sea. The eight-year-old child obeyed, and found
herself the object of nasty hoots and whistles. An adult told the family that
they had committed an indecent act, one that was “an insulting breach of
his country’s hospitality.” The dignity of Italy was invoked. The family was
forced to appear at the municipal offices and pay a fine.
At this moment the narrator poses a question he will return to later in
the tale. He asks why they did not leave. His claim is that they thought it
better to face adversity squarely and overcome it rather than to succumb to
such bullying.
But now the tale turns fantastic. The narrator invokes the term
“uncanny” to describe what is happening. He is in a place where there is a
rupture with ordinary behaviour and experience; he has, unwittingly, left
the normal world.
Posters appear advertising the coming of the magician to Torre. The
children are excited by the prospect of a conjurer, a magic show, and the
family purchases tickets for the performance, which is attended by the whole
of the town. The family has seats, while the youth of Torre stand at the rear,
many of them known to the family, including their waiter Mario and several
young fishermen.
Mann immediately gives the magician something of a personality. First,
there is his name and assumed title. He is Cipolla, and claims to be a Cava-
liere, a kind of “knight.” Cipolla means “onion” in Italian. Some commenta-
tors suggest that the name refers to a person with no centre. However, there
is more to it. An onion has many layers, is far more complex than it appears,
and one has to peel away a lot before finding the centre. He is a complex
character, for whom appearance and reality must be distinguished.
The Cavaliere title has an intertextual reference. Mann was a great
admirer of Goethe, and he not only knew Goethe’s Faust well, he would
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Great Queen Street, and yet the fact that it also deals with the steps to be taken
against “one Holford and his tennantes” for their default in allowing “the streete in
Drury Lane in his Maties ordinary way” to be very noisome, seems to point to the
Theobalds route. Perhaps the fields north of Holborn are referred to.
165. The entrance became known as “Hell Gate” or “Devil’s Gap.” The
widening of the street to its present measurements is said to have been carried out
in 1765 (Blott’s Blemundsbury, p. 370).
166. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1611–18, James I., vol. 69 (36).
Robert Cecil was created Earl of Salisbury in May, 1605; he died in May, 1612.
167. This form of the name occurs frequently.
168. See p. 14.
169. In January, 1669–70, references occur to “John Jones, the master of the
White Swan in Queen Street, Drury Lane,” and “John Jones, victualler, at the
White Swan in Queen’s Street” (Historical MSS. Commission, Ho. of Commons
Calendar, App. to 8th Rep. I., 155b, 157a). As late as 8th April, 1677, a letter was
addressed to “Don Manuel Fonseca, Queen Street” (Calendar of State Papers,
Domestic, 1677–8, p. 82). On the other hand, the title Great Queen Street is found
in 1667 as the address of Viscount Conway (Ibid., 1667, p. 535), and occurs even in
a passage which must have been written at least fifteen years earlier (see p. 50).
170. See, e.g. Wheatley and Cunningham’s London, Past and Present, III., p.
135: “The houses in the first instance were built on the south side only”;
Heckethorn’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields, p. 171; Parton’s Hospital and Parish of St. Giles,
p. 133.
171. See p. 50.
172. See p. 35.
173. Lease to Edward Fort of 18th May, 1612, quoted in indenture of 10th
February, 1625, between Jane and Richard Holford and Jeoffery Prescott (Close
Roll, 22 Jas. I. (2601)).
174. In the absence of deeds relating to the early history of Nos. 14–35, it is
impossible to be more precise. There may, of course, have been gaps in the north
side (excluding Nos. 1–6) even later than 1612. In the Subsidy Rolls of 21 James I.
(1623–4) and 4 Charles I. (1628–9), preserved at the Record Office, thirteen names
of occupiers of houses in the street are given, and the assessment in 1623 for the
rebuilding of St. Giles’ Church gives fifteen housekeepers in the street (Parton,
Hospital and Parish of St. Giles, p. 136n). No adequate idea of the number of
houses in the street can, however, be gained from these facts, for the subsidy rolls
certainly do not give all the occupiers, and, as the assessment was not compulsory,
it is improbable that every householder made a contribution.
175. History of ... St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. George, Bloomsbury, p. 58.
176. No evidence has come to light in the course of the investigations for this
volume whereby Lord Herbert’s house might be identified. In his will, dated 1st
August, 1648, proved 5th October, 1648, he refers more than once to his “house in
Queene Streete”. (Somerset House Wills, Essex, 138).
177. Close Roll, 18 Chas. I. (3295).—Indenture between W. Newton and
Francis Thriscrosse.
178. Close Roll, 15 Chas. I. (3192).
179. Close Roll, 15 Chas. I. (3190)—Indenture between W. Newton and Ric.
Webb, Nicholas Redditt and Jeremy Deane.
180. Harl. MS., 5,900, fol. 57b.
181. Indenture, dated 7th February, 1734–5, between John Bigg and Peter
Guerin. (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1734, V., 85.)
182. British Museum, Crace Colln., Portfolio 28, No. 53.
183. It is possible that in 1646 Sir Martin Lumley was resident at this house,
but not certain. In the Subsidy Roll for that year his name is the first on the north
side of the street, and precedes Sir Thos. Barrington’s, who, it may be proved, lived
at No. 3. It may be, therefore, that Lumley was the occupant of No. 1.
184. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Baronetage, II., p. 80.
185. Reproduced here.
186. Elizabeth Killigrew, Lewis Richardes, Thomas Stoake.
187. Lewis Richardes.
188. See p. 35.
189. It is given (Close Roll, 22 Jas. I. (2601).—Indenture between Jane and
Richard Holford and Jeoffrey Prescott) as the eastern boundary of Prescott’s
property, which extended along the north side of Great Queen Street from Drury
Lane, and the length of which is given as 120 feet. Thus the Prescott property was
on the site of the present Nos. 38 to 45. A deed dated 20 June, 1721, refers to
property of which Seagood’s house had formerly formed the western boundary.
This deed gives the names of the occupants of the houses to which it relates both in
1636 and at that time, and the latter list clearly identifies the property as Nos. 26 to
35, thus leaving 36 and 37 for Seagood’s house. That this house corresponded to
two numbers is rendered quite certain by a careful comparison of the entries in the
series of Hearth Tax Rolls. In fact, the house is on two occasions taxed for 30
hearths, which seems an over estimate, as the assessment is afterwards reduced to
24 hearths. Even this implies a very large house.
190. Close Roll, 13 Chas. II. (3123).—Indenture between Henry Holford and
Paul Williams, etc.
191. Reproduced here.
192. Close Roll, 5 Chas. I. (2800). Indenture between Richard Holford and Sir
Edw. Stradling—reciting indenture of 1618.
193. See Recovery Roll, 9 Chas. I. rot. 23 (201). Indenture between Edward
Stradling and George Gage.
194. See p. 93.
195. Close Roll, 5 Chas. I. (2800). Indenture between Richard Holford and Sir
William Cawley and Geo. Strode.
196. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1629–31, p. 47.
197. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1629–35, p. 55.
198. See p. 93.
199. Close Roll, 11 Chas. I. (3059). Indenture between Sir Kenelm Digby and
William Newton.
200. He succeeded his father as Earl of Carnwath in 1639.
201. Patent Roll, 12 Chas. I. (2740).
202. The means taken to enforce a uniform design may be gathered from the
fact that the purchaser of certain plots to the west of Nos. 55–56 was required to
build three houses “to front and range towards Queenes Streete ... in the same
uniformity, forme and beauty as the other houses already ... erected by the said
William Newton in Queenes Streete are of.”
203. The evidence for this statement is gathered from the undermentioned
illustrations:
No. 51. Sir Robert Strange’s House (Parton’s Hospital and Parish of St. Giles,
p. 250), 3 bays, 4 pilasters. Western portion of third plot 41 feet wide.
Nos. 55–6, 57–8. Bristol House (Ibid.). Double façade each 44 feet wide, 5
bays, 6 pilasters. Fifth plot 88 feet wide.
Nos. 55–6, 57–8. J. Nash, 1840. (The Growth of the English House, J. Alfred
Gotch.)
Original Freemasons’ Tavern. Engraving by Joseph Bottomley, 1783. 5 bays, 6
pilasters. Seventh plot 44 feet wide.
Queen Street Chapel (Parton, op. cit. p. 250). Western portion of tenth plot 59
feet 6 inches wide.
No. 70. (Photograph taken by the London County Council in 1903.) Refronted
on old lines, 4 bays, 5 pilasters on plot 35 feet wide.
204. Survey of London, Vol. III. (St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Part I.), p. 97.
205. II., p. 174.
206. See p. 86.
207. See full quotation on p. 45 footnote.
208. Harl. MS., 5,900, 57b.
209. The reason why Lindsey House is now not in the middle of the west side
of the Fields is that in the original design the west row extended from Gate Street
to No. 2, Portsmouth Street. The building of the houses on the north and south
sides of the Fields, not included in the original design, encroached on both sides of
the west row, but the encroachment on the north being the greater, the axis of the
square was thereby moved further south.
210. British Museum. J. W. Archer Collection. “The house called Queen Anne’s
Wardrobe,” drawn 1846 (No. 55–6, Great Queen Street) and “House of the
Sardinia Ambassador,” drawn 1858 (No. 54, Lincoln’s Inn Fields).
211. “The expert surveyour will repart the windows to the front of a palace,
that they may (besides the affording of sufficient light to the rooms) leave a solid
peeres between them, and to place some pleasing ornament thereon, not
prejudicial to the structure, nor too chargeable for the builder, shunning
incongruities, as many (pretending knowledge in ornaments) have committed, by
placing between windows pilasters, through whose bodies lions are represented to
creep; as those in Queen Street without any necessity, or ground for the placing
lions so ill, which are commonly represented but as supporters, either of weight, or
of arms on herauldry.” (Counsel and Advice to All Builders, pp. 13–14.)
212. See p. 38.
213. Anecdotes of Painting, II., p. 60.
214. Survey of London, Vol. III. (St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Part I.), Plate 6.
215. It was assessed for the hearth tax at 40 hearths, while Conway House,
although of the same frontage, was only assessed at 31.
216. The frontage of this house is stated in certain deeds in the London County
Council’s possession (e.g., Indenture of 26th October, 1639, between Wm. Newton
and Compton, Dive and Brewer) to be 98 feet, but in others (e.g., Release by Wm.
Newton senr., to Wm. Newton, junr., dated 22nd January, 1637–8) is given as 88
feet. That the latter is correct may be regarded as certain from the perfect accord of
the total number of feet thus obtained with the present boundaries.
217. The deeds from which these particulars are taken are (1) Close Roll, 15
Chas. I. (3196)—Indenture between Wm. Newton and Sir Ralph Freeman; and (2)
a deed in the possession of the Council—Indenture between Newton and Sir Henry
Compton, etc. The former deed, in error, reverses the eastern and western
boundaries.
218. A release by deed poll from Wm. Newton the elder to Wm. Newton the
younger, in the possession of the London County Council.
219. Close Roll, 5 Geo. I. (5117)—Indenture dated 16th May, 4 Geo. I., between
Sir John Webb and Thos. Stonor, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, etc.
220. Mr. Stonor inhabited the western half of the original house, now forming
Nos. 55 and 56; Mr. Browne was in occupation of the eastern half, afterwards Nos.
57 and 58.
221. Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1832, V., 93.
222. See p. 53.
223. Survey of London, Vol. III. (St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Part I.), Plate 66.
224. In possession of the London County Council.
225. Close Roll, 15 Charles I. (3196). Indenture between Wm. Newton and Sir
Ralph Freeman.
226. Marginal note in his private journal (Memoirs and letters of Marquis of
Clanricarde, ed. by K. De Burgh, p. 68).
227. Deed in possession of the London County Council.
228. Memoirs and Letters of the Marquis of Clanricarde, p. xiv.
229. Hist. MSS. Comm.; MSS. of the Earl of Egmont, I., p. 223.
230. Constitutional History of England (ed. 1854) III., 389n.
231. Somerset House Wills, Nabbs, 117.
232. She was Catherine, daughter of Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford; her
husband, Robert Greville, second Baron Brooke, distinguished himself as a general
of the parliamentary forces in the Civil War, and was killed at Lichfield in 1643.
Fulke Greville, who was not born until after his father’s death, eventually
succeeded to the title, and died in 1710.
233. Close Roll, 1654 (3814).
234. Sir William Constable was afterwards possibly an occupant of the house,
for on 24th May, 1647, he wrote to the old Lord Fairfax from “Queen Street.” (Hist.
MSS. Comm.; Morrison MSS., Report IX., Part II., App. p. 439.) Constable had
married in 1608, Dorothy, daughter of Thomas, first Lord Fairfax. He contrived
with difficulty to raise a regiment of foot in the Civil War, and greatly distinguished
himself in the field. He was afterwards one of the king’s judges and signed the
warrant for his execution. He died in 1655.
235. C. R. Markham’s The Great Lord Fairfax, p. 191.
236. Ibid., p. 254.
237. Ibid., p. 274. The old lord had recently married again. He announced the
fact to his brother in a letter dated “Queen Street, October 20th, 1646.”
238. Hist. MSS. Comm., Pembroke College MSS., Report V., App. p. 487.
239. He was still in the parish (possibly in this house) in 1658, for Parton
quotes (Hospital and Parish of St. Giles, p. 356) an entry in the churchwardens’
accounts for that year: “Pd. and expended at the sessions, about Sir William
Paston’s complaynt, of his being double rated.”
240. Close Roll, 15 Chas. II. (4143)—Indenture between the Hon. John Digby
and Sir Anthony Morgan and Richard Langhorne.
241. Described in Survey of London, Vol. IV. (Chelsea, Part II.), pp. 18–27.
242. Some time between 1666 and 1675 he removed to No. 51, Lincoln’s Inn
Fields (Survey of London, Vol. III., p. 71).
243. See also North’s account: “The great House in Queen Street was taken for
the use of this Commission. Mr. Henry Slingsby sometime Master of the Mint, was
the Secretary; and they had a formal Board with Green Cloth and standishes,
clerks’ good store, a tall Porter and staff and sitting attendance below, and a huge
Luminary at the Door. And, in Winter Time, when the Board met, as was two or
three times a week, or oftener, all the Rooms were lighted, Coaches at the Door,
and great passing in and out, as if a Council of State in good earnest had been
sitting. All cases, Complaints and Deliberations of Trade were referred to this
Commission, and they reported their opinion, whereupon the King in Council
ordered as of course. So that they had the Province of a Committee of Council; and
the whole Privy Council was less charge to the King than this.” (Examen, p. 461.)
244. The Council of Trade was established on 7th November, 1660, and by
patent dated 1st December in the same year Charles II. also created the Council of
Foreign Plantations. (Haydn’s Book of Dignities, 1894, p. 263.)
245. Slingsby writes on behalf of the Council for Foreign Plantations from
Queen Street, on 27th April, 1671. (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1671, p.
204.)
246. In October, 1672, the Council of Plantations was united to that of Trade
(Evelyn, Diary, 13th October, 1672), and the united Council seems thenceforth to
have utilised a portion of “Villiers House,” the house of the Duchess of Cleveland.
(Audit Office, Declared Accounts, Trade, etc., 2303 (2)).
247. See schedules of deeds appended to Indentures between Thos. Stonor,
etc., and Sir Godfrey Kneller, dated 11th and 12th March, 1717–8 (Close Roll, 5 Geo.
I. (5117)).
248. Chancery Warrants (Series II.), Signet Office, 16th April, 1669 (21 Chas.
II., 2386).
249. Indenture of 24th June, 1674, between Sir Chas. Harboard and John
Hanson, by direction of the Earl of Devonshire, and the Earl of Sunderland, recited
in Indenture of 12th March, 1717–8, between Thos. Stonor, etc. and Sir Godfrey
Kneller (Close Roll, 5 Geo. I. (5117)). Sunderland’s purchase of the Earl of Bristol’s
interest in the freehold was not effected until February, 1683–4 (Deed in
possession of the London County Council) just before his sale of the premises.
250. The fact that the 1675 Hearth Tax Roll shows the Earl of Devonshire at
the house is not conclusive against this, as it is probable, from other
considerations, that this particular roll, though bearing the date 1675, represents
the state of affairs in 1674.
251. Dictionary of National Biography.
252. Dictionary of National Biography.
253. Freehold and 99 years’ lease in April, subsidiary lease in June.
254. Second son of Thomas, first Lord Fauconberg, a prominent royalist. Died
in 1689.
255. Will of Lord Belasyse, quoted in Indenture of 12th March, 1717–8,
between Thos. Stonor, etc., and Sir Godfrey Kneller (Close Roll, 5 Geo. I. (5117)).
256. Indenture of 12th March, 1717–8, between Thos. Stonor, etc., and Sir
Godfrey Kneller (Close Roll, 5 Geo. I. (5117)).
257. The sewer ratebook for 1703 (representing probably the state of things in
the previous year) shows “Thomas Stonor, Esq.” still in occupation; that for 1709
(the next issue) gives “Sir Godfrey Kneller.” The Dictionary of National Biography
says he purchased the house in 1703, but this is obviously an error. (See above).
258. Somerset House Wills, Richmond, 161.
259. The statement seems to have originated with Horace Walpole (Anecdotes
of Painting, Wornum ed. (1888), II., pp. 209–210).
260. Munk’s Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, I., p. 456.
261. London Past and Present, III., p. 137.
262. See p. 76.
263. A deed of 27th November, 1745, shows “Lady Goodyear” and Mr. Charles
Leviez then in occupation. (Midd. Registry Memorials, 1745, III., No. 156).
264. Sir Godfrey Kneller left his Great Queen Street property to his wife for
her lifetime, with reversion to his godson, Godfrey Kneller Huckle, “provided the
surname of Kneller be adopted.” Godfrey Kneller, the younger, died in 1781, and
his son, John Kneller, in 1814.
265. Bryan’s Dictionary of Artists; Walpole’s Anecdotes, p. 702.
266. The Dictionary of National Biography is in error in stating that he added
this house to the other.
267. Redgrave’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.
268. Leask’s James Boswell, p. 125.
269. Nichol’s Illustrations of Literature, VII., pp. 308–9.
270. Details of Boswell’s residence there are given in the Council’s publication,
Indication of Houses of Historical Interest, I., pp. 79–84.
271. III., p. 137.
272. Holden’s Triennial Directory for 1802–4.
273. Reproduced here.
274. See p. 47.
275. “All that messuage ... lately divided into two shops or dwelling houses.”
Indenture, dated 7th October, 1813, between Sophia Kneller and G. J. Kneller and
Thos. Crook. (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1813, IX., 129.) The ratebook for
1812 shows the house in single occupation.
276. Close Roll, 17 Chas. I. (3275)—Indenture between Edward, Lord Viscount
Conway, Edw. Burghe, and William Newton and Elizabeth, Countess Rivers.
277. Release and quit claim by Wm. Newton, jnr., in possession of the London
County Council.
278. The house was still standing on 12th February, 1738–9 (see indenture of
that date between Philip Carter and Jas. Mallors, Middlesex Registry Memorials,
1739, I., 450–1), but by 22nd May in that year it had been demolished, the two
houses fronting Great Queen Street were then in course of erection, and others
were intended to be built. The parish ratebook for 1739 shows the house as
“Empty”; that for 1740 gives: “Empty. 12 houses made out of one.”
279. That the archway was exactly in the centre may be proved by the fact that
when the two houses were sold to Jas. Mallors in the year 1742, they were each
described as 22 feet in width, including half of the passage into Queen’s Court
(Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1741, IV., 424 and 1742, I., 435).
280. Between Thomas Wither and Thomas Raye (Common Pleas Recovery
Roll, 26 Chas. II., Trinity, Rot. 4).
281. Feet of Fines, Middlesex, 13 Chas. I., Trinity.
282. (27th January, 1650–1.) “Col. Berkstead to take care for the pulling down
of the gilt image of the late Queen, and also of the King, the one in Queen Street,
and the other at the upper end of the same street, towards Holborn, and the said
images are to be broken in pieces.” (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1651, p.
25.)
283. Recovery Roll (Common Pleas), 17 Chas. I., Hilary, 236.—Indenture
between William Newton, Philip Willoughby and Edward Mabb and Edward
Burghe.
284. Afterwards Middle Yard.
285. See p. 82.
286. See Indenture of 18th May, 16 Geo. II., between Lord Conway and
Francis Paddy (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1743, I., 334–5).
287. Henry Sadler, Some memorials of the Globe Lodge No. 23 of the Ancient
Free and Accepted Masons of England, p. 11.
288. Documents and drawings preserved in the Soane Museum.
289. Photographs of various modern features, although not coming properly
within the scope of this volume, have been inserted for the purpose of showing the
historic continuity of the buildings on the site of the old Hall.
290. The premises had been purchased in 1880. (Middlesex Registry
Memorials, 1880, 962).
291. Indenture of 5th March, 1718–9, between Lord Montagu, etc. (1), William
Juxon and Jas. St. Amond (2), and Sir Godfrey Kneller and Ed. Byng (3), in the
possession of the London County Council.
292. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
293. The sewer ratebook for this year shows “Henry Browne” in occupation of
the house, but that for 1700 has the entry “— Webb, Esq.,” referring to the owner.
294. The sewer ratebook for this year shows “Henry, Lord Montague” in
occupation.
295. Burke’s Extinct Peerage.
296. For other houses used for the purpose of the Portuguese Embassy in St.
Giles-in-the-Fields, see p. 97, and Survey of London, Vol. III., pp. 13, 82.
297. Somerset House Wills, Richmond, 161.
298. The house is referred to later on as “all that messuage, etc., formerly
called by the name of the Great Wardrobe” (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1811,
VI., 104). It will be noticed that the title “Queen Anne’s Wardrobe” given to the
western half of Bristol House in 1846 (Plate 16) is doubly incorrect. In the first
place it is assigned to the wrong half of Bristol House, and secondly the dates show
that it could not possibly have had any connection with Queen Anne.
299. See copy of deed, dated 11th March, 1708–9, for the appointment of
Dummer as deputy. (Treasury Papers, Cal. 1708–14, CXIII., No. 12.)
300. Shortly before 4th February, 1774, Sheridan took a house in Orchard
Street (Sanders’ Life of Sheridan, p. 23).
301. His name in the ratebooks is given as “Richard Sheridan” only, but a deed
of 1811, giving the names of occupants of the house mentions him by his full name:
“formerly in occupation of Benjamin Wilson, painter, afterwards of John
Henderson, sometime since in the possession of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and
now of Ann Boak, milliner.” (Indenture of 20th June, 1811, between Jno. Kneller,
Peter Tahairdin, and Thos. Grove—Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1811, VI., 104.)
302. Moore’s Memoirs of Sheridan, p. 213.
303. F. M. Parsons’ Garrick and His Circle, p. 369. As an example of how false
history comes to be written, it is interesting to note that Mrs. Parsons describes the
house as “an Inigo Jones house, in which five men known to fame: Hudson, the
painter; scritch-scratch Worlidge, the etcher; Hoole, Tasso’s translator, whom
Johnson loved; now Sheridan; and after him, Chippendale, the cabinet maker,
successively lived.” None of the other individuals mentioned lived in the house
occupied by Sheridan.
304. See p. 59.
305. Stafford’s Letters (Ed. Wm. Knowler, 1739), II., p. 165
306. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1638–9, p. 113.
307. Close Roll, 17 Charles I. (3275). Indenture between Lord Conway, Edw.
Burghe and Wm. Newton and Elizabeth, Countess Rivers.
308. Historical MSS. Commission, House of Lords Calendar, Appendix to VI.
Report, p. 109b.
309. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage. The Dictionary of National Biography states
that he was born in 1628, and was the son of John Savage, a colonel in the royal
army.
310. Historical MSS. Commission, Frere MSS., Appendix to 7th Report, p.
531a.
311. Elizabeth Scroope, married to the Earl in 1647.
312. “Lord Rivers denies entrance to survey and payment,” and “Earle Rivers
refuseth to pay.”
313. Historical MSS. Commission, Frere MSS., Appendix to 7th Report, p.
531a.
314. At first a Roman Catholic, the Earl subsequently joined the English
Communion.
315. Mary, the second wife of the second Earl, at this time Countess Dowager
Rivers, by her will, proved 25th January, 1657–8 (in which she is described as “of
St. Giles”) left £400 to Sir Francis Petre (Somerset House Wills, Wootton, 5).
316. Covent Garden.
317. Was this the third Earl’s sister of that name, youngest daughter but one of
the second Earl by his first wife?
318. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1673–5, p. 37.
319. Ibid., p. 174.
320. Dictionary of National Biography.
321. Arabella, died s.p. 21st March, 1717. (G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.)
322. He married, in 1679, Penelope, daughter of John Downes; and in 1688
Mrs. Margaret Tryon. (Ibid.)
323. Somerset House Wills, Barnes, 209.
324. Daughter of Sir Peter Colleton, and one of the Earl’s numerous
mistresses.
325. Sewer ratebook for 1720: “Lord North and Grey.”
326. On 29th September, 1722, the Duchess of Rutland wrote to Lady Gower:
“The two lords went there [to the Tower] last night, Orrery and North and Gray,
through their own want of consideration and indiscretion, ’twas said.” (Hist. MSS.
Commission, MSS. of Duke of Sutherland, Report V., p. 191.)
327. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
328. His country residence was St. Osyth’s Priory, Essex.
329. She died on 23rd June, 1746. (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1746, p. 328.)
330. Indenture of 12th February, 1738–9, between “Philip Carter of Tunstal,
Suffolk, clerk, and Bessy, his wife (widow of Frederick late Earl of Rochford,
deceased, and now commonly called Countess Dowager of Rochford), William
Henry, Earl of Rochford, eldest son and heir of the said Frederick by the said
Bessy, and Sir John Colleton, of Exmouth, Bt., brother and heir at law of Elizabeth
Colleton alias Johnson, deceased, and James Mallors”; purporting to be a lease
“for a year to vest the possession of and concerning all that capital messuage or
mansion house situate on the south side of Great Queen Street where the said
Frederick did lately dwell, which said messuage or mansion house was heretofore
the house of Richard, Earl Rivers, and then called or known by the name of Rivers
House.” (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1739, I., 450–1.)
331. Lincoln’s Inn Fields, p. 174.
332. FitzGerald, Life of Mrs. Catherine Clive, p. 84.
333. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. IV., pp. 7, 243.
334. See p. 60.
335. “March 31, 1638–9.... Direct your letter to be left with Lord Conway’s
maid in Queen Street, so it will come more speedily to me, since I am very often
with the Lord Admiral [Earl of Northumberland], whose house is next to Lord
Conway’s, as I think you know” (Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1638–9, p.
630).
336. See p. 86.
337. Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion, Book III., par. 228.
338. Letters from Thos. Smith to Sir John Pennington (Calendar of State
Papers, Domestic, for 1638–9, pp. 92, 103, 113, 130).
339. Order of the Committee of the Council of War (Ibid., p. 166.)
340. March 5th, 1638–9. Instructions from the Lord Admiral to Capt. John
Mennes of the Victory (Ibid., p. 537).
341. Letter, headed “Queen Street,” from Northumberland to the deputy
lieutenants of Nottinghamshire (Hist. MSS. Commission, Reports on MSS. in
Various Collections, VII., 295).
342. Recovery Roll (Common Pleas), 17 Chas. I., Hilary (236).
343. After her husband’s death she fell under the displeasure of Parliament,
and “endured a long imprisonment ... and had ... been put to death if she had not
made her escape to Oxford.” (Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion, Book
XI., par. 222.) She afterwards (in 1648) married Sir James Livingstone, who
became Earl of Newburgh.
344. Close Roll, 17 Chas. I. (3275)—Indenture between Lord Conway, etc., and
Countess Rivers.
345. John Lucas, etc., “say they carried divers pictures, with frames, others
without frames, and some rayles into Mr. Withers House [it will be remembered
that Anthony Withers had purchased the house from Newton in 1637–8] in
Queen’s Street, now in the possession of Col. Popham, the which goods above said
these examiners say are the proper goods of Mr. Withers” (Interregnum Papers,
A., 98). Withers was reported as a delinquent in October, 1645 (Domestic
Interregnum Committee for Advance of Money (Order Book), A., 4 (295)), and
was sequestrated in January, 1646 (Interregnum Papers A., 98 (13)).
346. Interregnum Papers G., 17 (704).
347. A deed relating to the house, dated 20th May, 1674, refers to it as being
“now or late in the tenure ... of the Right Hon. Francis, Lord Viscount Mountague”
(Common Pleas Recovery Roll, 26 Chas. II., Trinity, vol. 4 (366)).
348. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
349. She was Elizabeth, daughter of Edward, first Marquess of Worcester. She
died in 1684.
350. Sewer ratebook for 1683.
351. Indenture, 9th May, 1764, between Packington Tomkins (1), the Hon.
Geo. Lane Parker (2) and Philip Carteret Webb (3) (Middlesex Registry
Memorials, 1764, II., 491); indenture 16th November, 1774, between the Rev. Jas.
Hallifax, etc., and Trustees for the Freemasons (Ibid., 1775, II., 122).
352. Historical MSS. Commission, Earl of Denbigh’s MSS. Appendix to 8th
Report, Part I., p. 556b.
353. Feet of Fines (Middlesex), 1 Anne, Hilary.
354. His country residence was Woodberry Hall, Cambridge.
355. Somerset House Wills, Bedford, 210–211.
356. Mary, his eldest daughter, married (with a dower of £30,000) George,
Viscount Parker, who in 1732 succeeded his father as (second) Earl of Macclesfield.
357. Afterwards married William Cartwright, of Aynho, Northampton.
358. See her will, dated 22nd June, 1753 (Somerset House Wills, Pinfold, 80).
359. Indenture of 9th May, 1764 (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1764, II.,
491).
360. See his will dated 7th February, 1770 (Somerset House Wills, Jenner,
417).
361. Indenture between the Rev. Jas. Hallifax, Ric. Blyke, Edw. Beavor of
Farnham and Rhoda, his wife (lately Rhoda Webb, widow of Philip Carteret Webb,
late of Busbridge, Surrey, deceased) and the Rt. Hon. Robert Edward Lord Petre,
Henry Duke of Beaufort, Henry Duke of Chandos, Washington Earl Ferrers,
Viscount Tamworth and Rowland Holt (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1775, II.,
122).
362. Foxcroft’s Life of Gilbert Burnet, p. 144.
363. Survey of London, Vol. III., p. 75.
364. Macaulay, History of England, II., p. 180.
365. Ibid., II., p. 460.
366. Foxcroft’s Life of Gilbert Burnet, I., p. lvii.
367. Foxcroft’s Life of Gilbert Burnet, I., p. lix.
368. Beaven’s Aldermen of the City of London, II., pp. 109, 186.
369. Lipscombe’s History of Buckinghamshire, II., p. 222.
370. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
371. See p. 56.
372. See p. 74.
373. Campbell’s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, IV., p. 560.
374. Wheatley and Cunningham (London Past and Present, III., p. 137),
mentioning his residence, which they wrongly identify with Nos. 55–56, say: “Here
on October 18, 1740, the young Joshua Reynolds came to him as a house pupil and
remained under his roof till July, 1743.” Leslie, in his Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
also states that this occurred at Hudson’s house in Great Queen Street. The
ratebooks, however, show quite clearly that in 1740–42, “Vanblew,” was in
occupation, and that from 1743 to 1745 the house was empty. The first year in
which Hudson is shown as the occupier is 1746. Reynolds’ residence with Hudson,
therefore, must have terminated before the latter had moved to the house in Great
Queen Street.
375. The entry “Geo. Hudson” in the issue of the ratebook for this year is
probably a mistake.
376. The Dictionary of National Biography states that Worlidge settled in
Great Queen Street in 1763, and the fact that Hudson’s name appears in the 1764
ratebook is not conclusive against this. On the other hand, a deed dated 9th May,
1764, mentions the house as being then in the occupation of Hudson (Middlesex
Registry Memorials, 1764, II., 491).
377. The parish ratebook for 1764 shows Hudson still in occupation of the
house, but he had apparently built his house at Twickenham before this. “In 1762
Reynolds dined one Saturday with his old master, Hudson, at ‘Twitenham,’ where
he had built a house in the meadows” (Leslie’s Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, I., p.
213).
378. A deed of 16th November, 1774, refers to the house as “formerly in the
tenure of Mr. Hudson, painter, and late in that of Mr. Worlidge” (Middlesex
Registry Memorials, 1775, II., 122).
379. Dictionary of National Biography.
380. Memoirs of Mrs. Robinson, ed. by M. E. Robinson, I., pp. 74–5.
381. Memoirs of Mrs. Robinson, I., p. 94.
382. See p. 60.
383. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1638–9, p. 630.
384. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
385. Letter, dated 16th May, 1631, from Thomas Case ... to Edward, Viscount
Conway, etc., “at his house in Drury Lane” (Calendar State Papers, Domestic,
1631–3, p. 45).
386. Recovery Roll, Common Pleas, 21 Chas. I., Mich., rot. x (251).
387. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
388. Possibly Lord Wharton was the actual occupant of the house at the time.
389. Historical MSS. Commission, Duke of Portland’s MSS., Vol. III., p. 291.
390. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, Addenda, 1660–70, p. 701.
391. Ibid., pp. 712–3.
392. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1667, p. 535.
393. Ibid., 1667–8, p. 259.
394. Ibid., 1668–9, p. 223.
395. Roger Boyle, Baron Broghill and 1st Earl of Orrery (1621–1679) rendered
great service to the Parliamentarians in Ireland, but afterwards realising that
Richard Cromwell’s cause was hopeless, he combined with Sir Charles Coote to
secure Ireland for Charles II. He was also a dramatist of some repute.
396. Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1668–9, p. 502.
397. Ibid., 1668–9, p. 567.
398. Ibid., 1670, p. 111.
399. A less known contemporary account is the following: “Wednesday night
last ... some mischievous persons to dishonour my Lord Chancellour crept through
a window of his house in Queen Street and stole the mace and the two purses, but
by good chance could not find the seal. There was upon the table a great silver
standish, and a thousand guineyes in a cabinet, as they report, but nothing of them
touched, the design being upon another score than bare robbery” (Letter, dated
8th February, 1676–7, from Edward Smith to Lord Rous, Historical MSS.
Commission, Rutland MSS., XII. Report, App. V., p. 37).
The entry in the Middlesex Sessions Records concerning the event is as
follows: “7 February, 29 Charles II.—True Bill that, at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Co.
Midd., in the night between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. of the said day, Thomas Sadler alias
Clarke, William Johnson alias Trueman and Thomas Reneger, all three late of the
said parish, laborers, broke burglariously into the dwelling house of Heneage Lord
Finch the Lord Chancellor of the said Lord the King and then and there stole and
carried off a silver mace gilt gold worth one hundred pounds and two velvet purses
imbroydered with gold and silver and sett with pearles, worth forty pounds, of the
goods and chattels of the said Lord the King. Found ‘Guilty,’ all three burglars were
sentenced to be ‘hanged.’” (Middlesex Sessions Records, IV., p. 75).
400. Dictionary of National Biography.
401. Roger North’s Autobiography, p. 165.
402. “After we came to London, we were to wait on the Lord Jeffreys, who had
the Seal, to congratulate and offer him all the service we could do, and to receive
his commands touching the house in Queen Street where the Lord Keeper lived,
and it was so proceeded that he took the house” (Roger North’s Autobiography, p.
195).
403. H. B. Irving’s Judge Jeffreys, p. 332.
404. 7 and 8 Will. III., cap. 27 (sessional number, 53).
405. Then resident next door, see pp. 73–4. She was Ursula, widow of Edward
Conway, first Earl of Conway.
406. See e.g., Indenture of lease, dated 18th November, 1743, between Francis
Paddey and Jas. Mallors (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1743, III., 453).
407. The vestry minutes for 1712 also refer to the house under this title: “That
a proper place for the site of a new parish church, and a house for a minister,
would be at the great house in Great Queen Street, commonly called by the name
of the Land Bank” (Parton’s Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, p. 291).
408. He wrote several medical books, as well as a Narrative of the Birth of the
Prince of Wales. He had been summoned to attend the confinement of James II.’s
queen, but was away from London and arrived too late.
409. Subscriptions were to be paid at Mercers’ Hall and Exeter Change
(London Gazette, May 28th–June 1st, 1696), and Dr. Chamberlain’s office was, at
any rate, at first in New Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn (Ibid., June 20th–23rd, 1696).
410. “The trustees of the Land Bank, late at Exeter Change (now removed to
the Three Anchors, over against Salisbury Court in Fleet Street) do give notice, that
on the 11th day of February next they will make a dividend to such persons as are
Heads of classes to whom transfers are made” (The Post Boy, January 25th–27th,
1697–8).
411. Reproduced here.
412. See pp. 60–61, 63.
413. Survey of London, Vol. III., p. 98.
414. Confirmation of his residence in Great Queen Street about 1794 is found
by the mention of “Thos. Leverton of Great Queen Street” in a deed of 29th
September, 1795 (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1795, VI., 211).
415. Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson (1786), p. 173.
416. Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 5th April, 1775.
417. Obituary notice in Gentleman’s Magazine, 88, part ii., 179.
418. Reproduced here.
419. Indenture of 19th July, 1798 (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1798, III.,
185), referring to the sites of Nos. 67 and 68, recites the lease so far as it concerns
those sites. The recital also refers to other ground dealt with by the lease, and this
was almost certainly the site of No. 66, which it is known was also a Mills house,
the eastern boundary of Conway House being described as “the messuage of Peter
Mills, bricklayer, now in the tenure of the Countess of Essex.” (Recovery Roll
(Common Pleas), 17 Chas. I., Hilary (236).)
420. Peter Mills died in 1670, then being resident in Little St. Bartholomew’s.
(Somerset House Wills, Penn, 147.)
421. There is a clause referring to “such messuages and buildings as then were
or afterwards should be erected thereon,” which is quite indefinite, but if there had
been any houses the names of the occupiers would almost certainly have been
given. The Finalis Concordia relating to the transaction does not mention houses,
but only half a rood of pasture.
422. Parton’s Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, p. 290.
423. The occupier of No. 68 seems to have persisted later than 1709 (see
below). Moreover, the assessable value of No. 67 drops from £40 in 1703 to £25 in
1715 (the next record), a fact which seems to point to the curtailment of the
property due to the erection of the chapel.
424. Baguley’s The True State of the Case.
425. On 3rd September, 1728, Thos. Burges sold to Thos. Parnell and Wm.
Page certain houses (one of which was certainly No. 68), and “all that building or
chappell, together with all and singular the pews, seats, gallereyes and other rights
and privileges thereunto belonging.” (Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1728, I.,
251).
426. A Sermon preached at Queen Street Chapel and St. Paul’s, Covent
Garden, on ... the day appointed for a general fast.
427. He was certainly in possession on 19th June, 1758, for on that date he
mortgaged the whole of the property to William Ferrand (Middlesex Registry
Memorials, 1758, III., 4).
428. Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1798, III., 185.
429. Blemundsbury, p. 397.
430. Middlesex Registry Memorials, 1815, III., 227.
431. “The new Methodist Chapel erected on the south side of Great Queen
Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was opened yesterday morning. It is a spacious,
handsome building, and will accommodate a larger congregation than most of our
churches. It has a range of two galleries on each side. The altar is an appropriate
and beautiful piece of architecture.” (Morning Herald, 26th September, 1817).
432. Heckethorn’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields, p. 183.
433. See p. 61.
434. G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.
435. A much mutilated Hearth Tax Roll, dating apparently from some time
between 1666 and 1672, shows “Geo. Porter, Esq.,” residing on the south side of
Great Queen Street, but it cannot be proved that the entry refers to the same house.
436. Dictionary of National Biography.
437. Survey of London, Vol. IV., p. 81.
438. Burke’s Extinct Peerage. Knighted, 7th August, 1624 (Shaw’s Knights of
England, II., p. 186).
439. Peerage of England, 1710 (2nd edn.), p. 232.
440. See Survey of London, III., p. 53.
441. Probably the “Ashburnham Froude” who is shown in joint occupation
with Burges of No. 68 in 1723 (see p. 92).
442. Francis Const (1751–1839), legal writer. “Wrote some epilogues and
prologues, and numbered among his convivial companions Henderson, John
Kemble, Stephen Storace, Twiss, Porson, Dr. Burney and Sheridan.” (Dic. Nat.
Biog.).
443. “Yesterday was married by the Rev. Mr. Francklin at his chapel near
Russel Street, Bloomsbury, David Garrick, Esq., to Eva Maria Violetti.” (General
Advertiser, 23rd June, 1749). Fitzgerald (Life of David Garrick, p. 126) wrongly
says: “at the church in Russell Street, Bloomsbury.” The statement of Mrs. Parsons
(Garrick and his Circle, p. 143) that it was “at Dr. Francklin’s Chapel in Queen
Street (the modern Museum Street)” is based on unknown, but possibly quite
good, evidence.
444. Dictionary of National Biography.
445. The Dictionary of National Biography states that her death also took
place in Great Queen Street. It is difficult to reconcile this with the fact that the
parish ratebook for 1795 shows that Francis Const took up his residence in the
house in the course of that year. She was, however, certainly resident there on 4
June, 1795, the date of her will.
446. Burke’s Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, III., p. 402.
447. Historical MSS. Commission, MSS. of Duke of Rutland, IV., p. 545.
448. “The style of Lord Ros of Roos continued to be still used (wrongfully) by
the Earls of Rutland, as, indeed, it was until a much later period, and the well-
known divorce of John Manners ... was granted to him ... under the designation of
Lord Roos, to which he was not entitled.” (G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage.)
449. On the death of the sixth Earl of Rutland, the Barony of Ros of Hamlake
expired, and the old Barony of Ros devolved upon his daughter, Katherine, who
married George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham. She died in or before 1663, and
was succeeded in the title (of Ros) by her son George Villiers, second Duke of
Buckingham (Burke’s Peerage and G. E. C[ockayne’s] Peerage).
450. After his death she married Sir William Langhorn, Bt.
451. Historical MSS. Commission, MSS. of Duke of Rutland, Vol. IV.
452. Ibid., II., p. 19.
453. The latter is probably for the whole of this period in respect of the Chapel.
In 1733 a separate entry is made for Burges and the Chapel.
454. Reproduced here.
455. See p. 42.
456. The licence was granted in 1630 (see p. 43).
457. This ran parallel to Great Queen Street, 197 feet distant therefrom.
458. The above particulars are taken from Recovery Roll, 9 Chas. I. (Easter)
(201). Rot. 23.
459. Indenture dated 9th August, 1633, between Geo. Gage and the Lady Alice
Dudley (Close Roll, 10 Chas. I. (2652)).
460. Then (under the indenture of 9th August, 1633, mentioned above)
charged with a rent of £150 a year, during the life of Lady Dudley (Chancery
Proceedings, Series II., 409–73).
461. See Chancery Proceedings, Bridges, 562–24. Suit of Sir Edw. Stradling.
462. Such was the statement made by Weld in answer to the claim advanced
by Sir Edward Stradling, junr., grandson of the other Sir Edward, who, however,
suggested that the transaction was a mortgage containing a proviso for redemption
for £416. (Chancery Proceedings, Bridges, 562–24).
463. Parton (Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, p. 138) mentions a
tablet at one end of Wild Street, with an inscription suggesting that the east side of
the street was finished in 1653. This fits in quite well with the above-mentioned
facts.
464. It is mentioned as “the way ... leading on the back side of Drury Lane
from Princes Streete to Queene Streete” in Indenture of 13th August, 1629,
between Richard Holford and Sir Edw. Stradling (Close Roll, 5 Chas. I. (2800)).
465. The date of the lease to Ittery (see p. 93).
466. Weld’s own name, though usually spelt with an “e” is also found in the
forms: Wild, Wield, Weild.
467. Indenture between Richard Holford and Edward Stratton (Close Roll,
1658 (3984)).
468. Weld having been ordered to build a wall to prevent back avenues to his
chapel, at his house, was in 1679 accused of having evaded the order by leaving a
door in the wall, “whereby there will be as free access to the chapel as before.”
(Historical MSS. Commission, House of Lords MSS. App. to 11th Report, Part II.,
p. 127).
469. Blemundsbury, p. 384.
470. The lease was not held directly by the ambassadors; see particulars of a
mortgage of Weld House, 20 June, 1665, wherein was reserved a lease made on 10
May, 1678, by Weld of the ambassador’s house to Augustine Coronell for 10 years
at a rent of £300. (Chancery Proceedings, Bridges, 438–48).
471.

Lands. Goods.
Lady Francis Weld and Mr. Humphrey Weld 2 10 0 2 0 0
Sir John Wray. 1 0 0 1 0 0

472. “John Corrance ... sheweth that ... Humphry Weld, of Weld Street, esq., ...
built these several messuages, viz. ... and two other messuages scituate in Weld
Street, with two coach houses, stables and hay lofts over, being at the further end
of a garden in his, Humphry’s, possession, and by indenture of 17th May, 1665,
demised them to John, Lord St. John, of Basing, Earle of Wilts and Marquis of
Winchester, for twenty yeares, at a rent of £160; and also one other house in Weld
Street, which messuage with the use of a house of office at the end of a garden of
Weld’s called the Back garden, and the use of a pumpe in a stable yard thereto
adjoyning in common with his other tenants by indenture of July 31st, 1671, Weld
demised to Thomas Hawker, of St. Giles, gentleman, for 11¼ years at a rent of
£30.” (Chancery Proceedings, Bridges, 465–184).
473. See previous note.
474. Worsley’s residence was the last house but one in Great Queen Street,
and the premises held by him in Wild Street obviously backed on to his residence.
475. Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, p. 248.
476. It is impossible to make the entries in the Hearth Tax Rolls agree with all
the particulars of occupations given by Parton, and copies of the deeds from which
he quotes have not come to light in the course of the investigations for this volume.
477. “Finding them, however, to be too numerous, they ventured to apprehend
only some few that stood outmost, and hurrying them away as fast as they could,
by the time they were well within my gates, the rest made after them, attempted to
break open my doors, fell upon the watchmen, broke their halberts, flung brickbats
and stones up against my house, cried out: ‘This is the grand justice that hangs and
quarters us all, and caused Jones and Wright to be executed the last sessions,’
divided themselves into two parties, sent one to beset the back lane behind my
garden, having information given them that I sent prisoners out that way to avoid a

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